Movies shown during the festival reflected on the collective and individual capacity for empowerment to survive challenging socio-economic conditions, live in territories affected by environmental crises, and experience persecution and criminalization of struggles for justice in Latin America.
This 2024 Spring Semester, Elon’s students, faculty, and staff attended the Foreign Language Film Festival: Latin America Today, Risks and Dreams. The festival consisted of three screenings of contemporary documentary and fictional films at Turner Theatre. These movies reflected on the collective and individual capacity for empowerment to survive challenging socio-economic conditions, live in territories affected by environmental crises, and experience persecution and criminalization of struggles for justice in Latin America.
The first film, “Mama Irene: Healer of the Andes” (Directed by Elizabeth Mölhmann, Perú-USA, 2022) was screened on March 2. The documentary follows an indigenous healer, Mama Irene, from the Quechua Culture in the Peruvian Andes. She dedicates her life to helping other people with traditional methods and sacred indigenous medicines. The movie emphasizes a message to believe in the power of individual and collective healing, especially in communities confronting the lack of functional state health systems in remote areas. The screening was followed by a virtual conversation with the film director, Elizabeth Mölhmann, who shared with the audience her experience developing an audiovisual project based on non-Western epistemologies, and highlighted the relevance of empowering indigenous women in present times.
The second film, “They Are Killing Us/Nos están matando” (Directed by Emily Wright and Tom Laffay, Colombia-USA, 2022) was screened on April 4. This film focuses on the persecution of indigenous and Afro-descendent leaders in Colombia, who are confronting the multinational corporations’ mining projects. The documentary denounces the systematic killing of community leaders in the context of the failure of the peace agreement signed by Colombian armed groups and the government in 2016. As part of this event, local and international activists from the U.S.-based organization Witness for Peace joined a conversation with the Elon community. In the session, Witness For Peace activists shared a first-hand perspective of the current human rights issues and environmental crisis in Colombia as well as opportunities for students to be involved in projects seeking to promote solidarity with racial minority communities.
The last screening of the festival was “Los Lobos” (Directed by Samuel Kishi, Mexico, 2019), on April 24. The movie follows brothers Max and Leo, two kids who have crossed the border from Mexico into the United States with their mother, Lucía. They are in search of better life conditions on the other side. In a significant scene of the movie, Max and Leo build an imaginary universe with their drawings and think about Mom’s promise of “Disneyland,” their land of dreams. The film faces the audience with reality from the point of view of the kids, who wanted to experience the so-called American dream but instead ended up facing hard social conditions in the United States.
The foreign film festival of the 2024 Spring Semester offered unique opportunities to promote interculturality and diversity on Elon campus. The movies enriched students’ civic engagement in a global context and encouraged awareness of social, gender and racial issues concerning Latin American subaltern groups.
The 2024 Spring Semester Foreign Film Festival was presented by the Department of World Languages and Cultures; Latin American Studies; and Peace and Conflict Studies. It was also sponsored by Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies; International and Global Studies; the Isabella Cannon Global Education Center; El Centro; Belk Library; ElonDocs; the Department of Sociology and Anthropology; and the Department of Philosophy.